This invention relates to compound archery bows, and more particularly to a compound archery bow which is foldable to a compact unit for transportation or storage.
Compound archery bows have come into wide use for both target and game shooting. Their principal advantage resides in the reduction of pull weight at full draw, whereby an archery may utilize a pull weight greater than his normal abilities, while simultaneously affording greater sighting control.
However, like most archery bows, compound archery bows are quite large and cumbersome, making them difficult to transport or store. Although the limbs of many of the prior art compound bows are pivotable, for tension adjustments, to do so in order to allow folding of the limbs, obviously destroys any such pre-tensioning adjustment. Moreover, the limbs cannot be relaxed merely by removing the working stretch of the bow string, because the end segments of the bow string which are attached to the cams are not wrapped around the cams sufficiently to allow the cams to rotate enough to relax the limbs. Accordingly, pivoting of the limbs, and loss of pre-tensioning, is necessary to effect folding of the prior art compound bows.
On the other hand, the compound bow described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,295 provides for pre-tensioning of the limbs by secondary cables adjustably interconnecting the limbs and handle. Accordingly, the pivotal attachment of the limbs to the handle might be utilized for folding the limbs, except for the fact that the connection of the end segments of the bow string to the cams at the outer ends of the limbs does not allow the cams to rotate sufficiently to extend the end segments far enough to achieve the required relaxation of the limbs preliminary to release of the limbs for folding.